To My Son: Do NOT Respect Your Elders. (Lest you become a Nazi.)

That's right. SUCK IT, curmudgeons.

Seriously. Have you interacted with adults lately? Because I have. And a great many of them do not exhibit any characteristics I think deserve respect.

I'm not just talking about the adults who are murderers, sexual deviants, politicians, and other ostensibly untrustworthy folks.

I'm talking about normal adults. Egocentric, environmentally abusive, and materialistic. Maybe not most of them. I sure hope not MOST of them. But a lot of them. A LOT. Probably most.

I commute with them, they're our clients at work, I see them in the grocery store.

I have absolutely no reason to respect them, except in the sense that they are fellow humans, which is certainly worth something. But, children are also humans.

And children happen to be innocent, curious, and genuine humans. THOSE are qualities I respect.

If I ask myself what possible reason there is to respect grumpy, jerk hole adults over sweet, energetic children, I can think of only one. Because adults are in control, and they say so.

Eff that. Hard. It is so transparently wrong and self-serving that it makes my heart pound and my Irish skin turn red.

Because I don't see much morality here on adult street. Now, I don't think our species is a lost cause or anything. I mean, I saw the Buzzfeed that will restore your faith in humanity. And this one, too.

But, if we need our faith restored, that's a pretty good indication that something shook our faith in the first place. Something like valuing money, power, and things WAY too much. And something like valuing the earth and fellow humans not NEARLY enough.

I'm not teaching my kid to respect adults with values like those.

Because that's how you get Nazis.

Sounds crazy? If only.

Hitler didn't inject his subordinates with genocide juice. He capitalized on an allegiance to obedience. And obedience is little more than respect for authority. And if we tell our kids to respect all adults BECAUSE ADULTS, that doesn't help them distinguish authority that should be obeyed from authority that should not.

And if they don't learn to make that distinction, they might end up like Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi in charge of expediting death, the average guy who had a normal family life and was declared sane by six psychologists at trial. Or like Rudolf Hoss, commandant of Auschwitz, who had a similar upbringing. They and a lot of Germans were students of obedience-centric indoctrination, at home, in school, at church.

Yes. Nazis were regular people who valued obedience more than anything else. And then sh*t got crazy. And so did they.

Scary, yes? Stanley Milgram thought so, too. And so he tried to prove that Americans were different from Germans. And he found that we weren't so much.

And before you lunatics accuse me of defending Nazis, I'm not. I'm not responsible for judging them or anyone else, but I'm a big fan of accountability. And that's precisely why this is so important to me.

I'm not saying that every obedient kid will fail to recognize evil and to slam on the brakes. But, I am saying that there is an inherent danger in emphasizing obedience. And, I am saying that obedience is a shortcut, easier and more concrete than cultivating morality in your child. And, I am saying that you should invest the time and trust in cultivating morality instead.

Look, no one saw Hitler coming. So, just in case.

Finley, I know you have a good heart. You will know right and wrong. That is enough.

You do not always need to be obedient. Just considerate. And loving. That is enough.

You do not need to give your elders more respect than any other life. Like a plant. That is enough.

Merry Holidays: 3 Things I Must Say on November 6th.

I can't take another year's worth of yammering about whether it's Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. It hurts my brain so much. This is your classic ain't-nobody-got-time-for-that scene, as tired as I am of that whole cray-craze.

Let's get real. Holiday season is hardcore. You should either be risking your life on the hunt for inhumane deals at 4am or stocking up on mason jars and busting the sh*t out of homemade gifts. You should either be assembling your faux tree and lighting your pine-scented candle or wrestling a real one up as your dog licks the sap off your bod. You should be pinning one thousand cookie recipes, eighty-six ideas for table settings even though you're not hosting, and at least twelve disappointing lists claiming to offer ideas for man-stocking stuffers.

Bottom line, there's a sh*t ton to do, and OH, it's THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR. So effing stop with all those IT'S NOT HOLIDAYS IT'S CHRISTMAS AND I WANT AN OOMPA LOOMPA NOW DADDY memes. Cuz I'm about to lose my sh*t. In fact, here it goes. In the form of a list. Obviously.

1. You serious, Christian?

What the f*ckity f*ck would Jesus really say in response to your b*tching about what to call the celebration of love surrounding his birthday?

Granted, He probably wouldn't say "f*ckity f*ck", and I'm not absurd enough to offer a precise guess. But if there's one thing I got out of ten years of Catechism other than ten years worth of cookies and juice, it's that He wants us to love even hoes like our bros. That's just how it goes.

If you're restricting your seasonal love to fellow Christians only, you're doing it wrong.

2. You're kind of an idiot if you wish someone a happy birthday on YOUR birthday.

Try to follow the analogy. Because you really shouldn't wish people happy birthday on your birthday INSTEAD OF on their birthdays. That is selfish and lame.

Know what else is selfish and lame?

Yes. Thinking that the only people celebrating something during what happens to be the Christmas season are Christians.

Is it really that gosh darn unthinkable that other holidays exist and that people celebrate them and that other people want to wish them pleasant celebrations?

3. Say whatever the efferoo you wanna say, and leave that shizz at that.

Regardless of the above number two, you aren't the government or the stores or the who or whatever else that has decided to embrace all holidays over the one and only Christmas. So if you want to keep on focusing on your holiday of choice, if the fact that you're in the majority motivates you to focus on the majority and ignore the rest, just do your thang and shut the bejesus uuuup.

The most eye-burning, ear-bleeding loathsome conduct ever? When people who are in the majority cry discrimination for no reason. I'm not saying it can't happen, but that's tricky water. And probably the worst thing you can do for your boat is to start lamenting over what bullsh*t it is that other people are celebrating holidays around the same time as your holiday.

I say all this with love. I mean, I'm not particularly thick-skinned, and I'm a Christmas-obSESSed Christian. And I just couldn't give less f*cks how anyone else phrases their holiday greetings. So I think if you really try, you can get the eff over it. Just try.

I know, I pretend to write a parenting blog. So, let me tie this into parenting: I don't want my kid to be a self-centered, closed-minded jerk hole. The end.

Dear lady sitting across from me on the train who just rolled her eyesat a kid who was being loud,

I rarely sit in these seats that face other seats. I find the accidental eye contact disrupting. Is it accidental when I zone out as I stare at a stranger, trying to figure out whatever I think I can figure out about a person by staring at her face? Moving on.

Well, I had no choice today. I always leave work early enough to get an emergency exit three-seater. Because being able to escape a disaster through the window is as important as having a personal space buffer between me and my seatmate.

But today, Obama got in my way at Faneuil Hall. I had to walk up into Government Center and back down to Congress. I then tried to cross a street to continue making my way to North Station and got screamed at and possibly almost shot by a jacked up cop, not knowing that the motorcade was about to come through. My B, officer.

Anyway, I'm guessing you don't care about that. Because I got the sense that you aren't big on empathy.

When you sat down across from me, my first thought was that you were pretty. Not gorgeous, so don't let it get to your merely pretty head.

But then a little kid made a rather vocal lap up and down the aisle of the train car with his mom, who was visibly desperate to find a seat so he'd calm down. And then, you, in the words of Kevin McCallister, woof. Not so pretty anymore.

Approaching 48 seconds of this child's noise, you looked at the pair and rolled your eyes. You rolled your eyes aggressively. Which is kind of hilarious, because if you can picture an adult aggressively rolling her eyes, you know it makes her look an awful lot like a petulant child. Irony is my favorite.

I know I sound critical. But they say that the flaws we're most critical about in others are ones we see in ourselves.

I don't know who they are, but they're at least kind of right. Because I used to do the same thing you just did. All the time. Back when I was pretty.

Back when I had a tan. And highlights. And time to put on makeup. And money for makeup. If nothing else because I didn't bother to get the expensive organic sh*t before.

Before I became a mom.

But back to you. As soon as your eyes completed the roll, mine shot directly to your bare ring finger.

Of course, your marital status told me nothing definitive. It's probably equally possible that you're a mom. Maybe not equally. I don't know the statistics.

But I was looking for the only clue I might find. Because I hope you're not a mom.

Us moms do sometimes get frustrated when our kids go ape bonkers. I might not know for sure why, but I like to think it's because we love them so much that we internalize their frustration. Not because the sound just annoys us. But then, we are still human. (Awesome humans. But still human.) And okay, it might be annoying sometimes.

But, that's with our own kids. I'd like to think (or maybe just hope or wish) that moms have it in them to sympathize with other moms when they witness a kid being... well, a kid.

The general public really likes to hate on kids. They're called entitled, spoiled, out of control. All because they're not behaving like adults.

All you uptight biddies are convinced THIS GENERATION is so awful. Guess what? Y'all been thinkin' that for a century's worth of generations. Seriously. Just go read that. All of it. And then shut the eff up about kids just being kids. With a little trust and a lot of good modeling, they'll grow up to be good humans.

Being controlled every minute of the day? That sure as sh*t will not improve the situation. Humans like freedom. It's why we stole this land and waged war on our government in the name of democracy. You can't stop that sh*t.

Now, I'm actually not writing this to be critical. Like I said, I've been there. Irritated by the noise of youth. So, I'm writing to share one thing that motherhood has opened my eyes to.

I'm looking for a better word for selflessness, but I've got nothing. So, SELFLESSNESS.

I used to walk around incredulous at all the interferences in my routine, as though they were intended to annoy me.

The persons walking slowly and getting in MY way on the sidewalk. The person who chose to take the empty seat next to ME. The mom who couldn't stop her kid from giving ME a headache.

But now I know.

The less you focus on yourself, the happier you get. Try it.

XO,
Rachel

PS YOU WEREN'T EVEN IN THE QUIET CAR. COACH BEHIND THE ENGINE, B*TCH.

6 Reasons I Want to Save My Kid from School.

I hate braggers and humblebraggers as much as you do.

So, I'm starting with a disclaimer that I don't think I'm exceptionally smart. I got lucky with some amount of natural intelligence somewhere. But if I were anywhere close to exceptionally smart, I would have either dominated in school without breaking a sweat, which I did not do, or I would have followed my curiosities outside of school, also which I did not do.

I realize that some people are smart enough to do well in school, learn, and not let it kill their curiosity. Maybe my kid will be smarter than me, but I was not smart enough to learn in a traditional school environment.

That said, I really was the sh*t in first grade. Not only was I in the BLUE reading group, I was smart enough to realize that we were color coded by intelligence, and the smartest kids were in the blue group. I enjoyed feeling smart, so I did my best on our stapled packets of purple-inked worksheets fresh off the old school roller copier. But sometimes "my best" involved rushing through the last page, because I could only enjoy morning recess if I had already finished all my worksheets for the day. I just couldn't wait to get my boogery hands on the box of scrap paper and free draw until lunch.

When fifth grade rolled around, it was puzzle cubes and Oregon Trail. In math, we got to pick an educational game from the back table if we finished our problems early. And there were only a few of those little plastic bags filled with interlocking pieces of gloriously tricky three-dimensional foam, so I had to act fast. And while the Oregon Trail probably related more to social studies, there was only room for computers in the science classroom. And actually, dysentery and cholera? Oregon Trail really kind of was a science game. Either way, I gave Mrs. Kulis my full attention every day only so that I could crush our daily assignment and move onto the important decisions of whether to forge the river and how many buffalo to shoot.

But around sixth grade, things started to change. We had to learn more stuff and harder stuff, so we couldn't just get our lesson and be left to work at it at our own pace with the promise of more entertaining endeavors awaiting those who finished early.

That's when we find out that, as promised, I'm not all that smart. It would have been smart to learn the only way that was available, and to pursue things I found interesting in my spare time. But I was so stupidly resolved against this kind of learning that I spent all my time finding ways not to do it.

If there's one thing any of us know about education, it's our own experience. And my experience was that control and boredom killed any desire I had to learn. And it was really, really dead by high school. Although I still found ways to get good grades, I was determined not to learn under the boring conditions. So:

1. I played Frogger every day in AP Calculus.

And got a ONE on the AP test at the end of the year. It wasn't like golf. That was the worst possible score. If you leave every answer blank, maybe you could get a zero, but I think your name alone earned you a one. I managed to do well on some other AP tests, but there was no fooling Calculus.

My best friend and I were seated at opposite sides of a table in an isolated corner of the library for the exam. We could have cheated, if either of us knew anything at all, but instead I think we quietly made dinosaur noises at each other to pass the time.

But, before Calculus came Pre-Calculus. Of course. And even though I also had access to primitive digital games on my TI-83 during Pre-Calculus and Honors Physics, they were two of only three classes in high school in which I actually did more work ON assignments than on AVOIDING assignments. (The other was Civics, and I got my BA in Politics, so, you know, go figure.)

And those two classes were the only classes in which I was taught by teachers who were also school volunteers in this program called FIRST. If you don't feel like clicking the link, I'll just add that it's an extracurricular activity in which students at participating high schools build robots and compete with each other.

FIRST was entirely elective and non-compulsory. So, naturally, it was the only venue where I was really eager about learning. So much so, that I was even willing to learn from those two teachers in school. Accordingly, trying to force kids to learn stuff they don't want to learn and will not remember will never make sense to me.

2. I cheated on an Honors English final.

I survived this class on a combination of Spark Notes, a crafty way of working tangents on open ending questions, and begging my friends to tell me everything they remembered about a book on our way into the room to take a test.

So, obviously, at the end of the year, I didn't know sh*t. Ordinarily some strategic last minute cramming would work fine, but this was junior year, which meant I already had Senioritis. Even one full night of studying seemed like too much genuine effort. Fortunately, our teacher played one of those moves where they give you like 10 potential questions for the open-ended section, tell you that six of them will appear, and that you'll get to choose three to answer, or something like that. But, Mrs. Gavin even broke it down into categories, so I was really able to narrow down the number of questions that I had to "study". Pre-writing answers on school paper seemed a lot like studying. And it was really easy to pull them out and append them to my test before handing it in.

I knew it wasn't fair. But, there was plenty of not fair going on. Like, a few days before that transgression, I got wind that the other Civics teacher let his class make posters containing answers to display in the room during their final exam. Since Civics was one of the three classes I actually worked at, and since this enabled our eventual valedictorian to squeak ahead of my GPA by .02 or something, I didn't care too much about fair.

3. I plagiarized a Spanish paper in English, ran it through an online translator, and handed it in.

And was SHOCKED when my teacher figured it out.

No, I wasn't. But, I really felt it was necessary to do something so egregious. I mean, yes, there was that cheating thing I just wrote about. But what I did there was about as close as I ever got to really doing what was asked of me. I just stopped short of the step where you memorize the material in order to regurgitate it the next day. And honestly, short-term memorization was my jam. If I bothered to stay up for two more hours that night, I would have gotten the same grade without breaking the rules.

But now a word of advice. If you get an assignment in Honors Spanish 5 to research some guy of Spanish significance and then write a few paragraphs about him in Spanish, just invest the three hours it takes to do this. Sure, it's much quicker to copy and paste some crap straight from the internet into Babblefish, then copy and paste that result directly into Word, type your name, and click print. But, your teacher will figure it out. And, making this statement is pretty darn risky. Not every teacher is as forgiving as Mrs. Fallon was.

Now, without psychoanalyzing my moral development, let's just say there was a time when I would've considered this scandalous beyond belief. And nothing changed in my home life over this time, so there aren't too many variables at work here. I can think of only one: more time spent in school.

4. I played about half the notes in "Instrumental Music" (code for band).

Probably a bit more than half. Unless we were marching, in which case, probably a bit less.

In elementary school, I loved nothing more than weekly music class. But it quickly became the same few songs and games over and over. The thrill of musical chairs just doesn't deepen your understanding of what music is.

Still clinging to a fading interest, I signed up to play the flute in fifth grade, which was the one and only chance you got to sign up to play an instrument in school. Violin and piano were not options. I'm not really trying to pretend I have some undiscovered talent for strings. But, I didn't enjoy practicing the flute, so I didn't do it, and I got left in the dust sometime around Mary Had a Little Lamb. I kept playing (or not playing) through high school, which was kind of worthwhile in a limited sense. But, it left me with a fundamental hatred for restrictions on when and what kids can learn based on the availability of a teacher. I think people would be surprised at what happens if you give a kid some resources and tools, and support their curiosity with trust and time. I can't say that I would have learned to play the violin or piano on my own much better than I ever learned to play the flute from Mr. Williams. But I can say that I would have learned something probably more worthwhile.

5. I succumbed to starvation and hypothermia in Chemistry.

Third period was inevitably tough. Right smack in between when I ate breakfast and lunch period. We weren't allowed to eat in classrooms or hallways, so if you couldn't stomach a big enough breakfast to last your 4+ hours, you were screwed. I was screwed.

Then there was the fact that they intentionally kept the science labs freezing cold, for some inhumane reason. If only I had realized before it was too late, I would have stuck with afternoon science classes, which gave the sun some time to warm up that side of the building.

There was probably no class I learned less in than Chemistry. Sure, I didn't usually want to pay attention. But even when I did want to, like the day before a test, I couldn't. Physical discomfort is really effing distracting.

We all know why they don't let you eat in classrooms. I know it sounds radical, but I think removing barriers to learning should be a school's most basic focus.

6. I sold out my friend for candy.

All this, and I never realized why I was so averse to doing schoolwork. I never reflected on it, never thought twice about it. If I had, I probably wouldn't have started filling out college applications for my friend Chris, who didn't want to go to college. Either way, I didn't get very far. When I begged him for his social security number, he just looked at me and said, College isn't for everyone.

College might not have been for Chris, but art was. And I'd bet he'd have been able to make a career with that talent if his high school guidance counselor had supported him taking a road he was comfortable with rather than undermining any confidence he had by bribing a little jerk named Rachel with candy to fill out college applications for him. I'm sorry, Chris.
I love candy.It's just that I had no idea that school was backwards. I thought I was backwards. I thought school was the only way to learn.

I started this by saying I don't think I'm particularly smart, but I also don't think I'm particularly dumb. And still, I thought school was the only way to learn.

The idea of pursuing interests and indulging my natural curiosity outside of school was literally inconceivable to me. I know this because I did not conceive of it. Even though it was an extension of school, my participation in FIRST should have been a clue, for sure. But seriously, I was up to my eyeballs working on avoiding doing schoolwork, which was probably harder than doing the schoolwork would have been.

Conventional school dominated 12 years of my life, and although I think I've recovered from it well, I don't want my kid to have to recover from 12 years. That's way too much of a waste of time. So I want Fin to go to a school based on the Sudbury Valley Model. Don't pretend you don't wish you went there.

6+ Months of Attachment Parenting

I was holding our one month old baby, when my sister-in-law "jokingly" announced over FaceTime that I was "spoiling" him.

I probably come across as more sensitive than I am for using quotes around jokingly. But, even the thickest-skinned mothers would find "jokes" like that lame. It's just never funny to criticize a new mom. And can we all agree that if it's not funny, it doesn't count as a joke?

Either way, my sister-in-law is certainly not the only person with a fear of "spoiling" children. Some people are convinced that practices like co-sleeping and baby-wearing will cause a baby to become too dependent on a certain level of attention, involvement, or care. But, it doesn't seem like attention, involvement, and care are bad things. So, they call it "spoiling". Because "spoiling" sounds like something you should avoid doing.

But, my questions are who are "they", and why do they care so much about how I care for my child?

Is it because "they" don't want self-centered a-holes to take over the world? Because I can get on board with that. I don't like a-holes either. So much so, in fact, that I actually do plan to avoid "spoiling" my child. But, when I say "spoiling", I'm talking about material sh*t.

I have this Facebook friend from high school. Days after announcing that she and her husband were expecting a girl, she posted a bunch of pictures of one thousand brand new outfits that she bought for her. They were all adorable, for the record. But, more recently, she posted a picture of her three-ish month old in their bed, and felt the need to add the disclaimer that NO! She doesn't sleep with us!!

If anyone cares, I actually like this girl. But, this seems remarkably backwards to me.

I think that giving a toddler too many THINGS is what spoils kids and turns them into jack wagon adults. I do not think that responding to a baby's needs turns them into the idiots who doddle in their little gang of five, taking up the whole sidewalk during rush hour, deaf to the phrase excuse me, and forcing me to step into oncoming traffic to make my train on time.

I think modeling is everything. If you want to teach your kid the importance of other people's needs, I think it makes a lot of sense to start your relationship by putting your child's needs first. I get why you're supposed to put your oxygen mask on first in the event of a plane crash, so if your postpartum experience feels like a plane crash, maybe you have no choice but to put your needs first. I get that. My mom was on anxiety medication for awhile when I was little. I get it.

But, if your postpartum life isn't a plane crash, my advice is: don't make it one. Because all this anxiety about "spoiling" babies can do that.

Part of me honestly believes that it's the baby product industry trying to scare moms away from allowing our babies to be dependent on us, because if they're not dependent on us, they're dependent on their swings, their mobiles, their security blankets. And all that sh*t just does not work as well. It makes your life harder.

When your baby cries unless you hold it, and you want to hold it, the last thing on your mind should be "spoiling" anxiety. Folding the clothes in a mad rush because you're not sure how long your baby will stay asleep after you put him down and deciding whether today is a day you shower may not seem easy. Because having an infant isn't easy. But trusting your instincts is a heck of a lot easier than trying to force a pissed off baby to be happy in a swing, although from what I hear, swings are fairly magical.

I know the fact that a baby needs a sh*tload of physical contact seems kind of nutty. Until you think about the fact that it had been living INSIDE of you for the entire nine months of its existence prior. And that it is, literally, in every way, completely dependent on you.

We readily accept that a baby's eyesight won't develop fully until six months, and we'll do sh*t like buy colorful books and toys to promote its eyesight. But, for some reason it's a challenge to believe that a baby is still developing brain chemicals that regulate emotions, and that physical contact literally creates those chemicals.

Whatever. Our kids can just live in a world populated by emotionally unstable jerk holes with good vision.

Because some people insist there's a difference between an infant's needs and an infant's wants. And they claim that babies cry not only when they need something, but also when they simply want something. Yikes. I will never believe that infants have mere preferences. These creatures can't even form a real thought. These things they "want" are dictated by instincts. Instinct: Science's word for BEST FOR SURVIVAL. Sounds a lot like a need.

I don't really think you'll permanently eff up your kid if you fail to meet a need to be held here or there. But, I do really think that crying is the only way babies communicate. Call it a need, call it a want, call it bacon. Whatever it is my baby wants to communicate, I want to encourage that communication. And the way to do that is by responding.

Dear parent complaining that your tweenager won't communicate with you, I think I know why.

I really don't want to judge how other people raise their kids. Because I downright loathe people who do that. I mean, if you love your kid, ten points for you. Ten million, even. But there are lots and lots of people who INSIST that prompt and constant responses, co-sleeping, and baby-wearing WILL cause spoiled, clingy, high maintenance behavior.

EFF THAT. I'm officially sick of this sh*t, and now that I have a pretty darn independent six month old, I can say it. In capital letters.

The real reason I'm so over it is because of my husband, who, at least partially, believed what all those f*ckers were saying about "spoiling" your baby.

I say partially, because we went through phases. Most recently, right before Finley could sit stably or move around well on his tummy, he did NOT want to be put down in his pack n play. We're talking bonkers. And not just Finley, my husband, too. Because that meant I had "spoiled" the baby. From now on, he would always have to be held.

It didn't mean that his brain was active and he needed more stimulation than a toy dangling over his face. No. It couldn't possibly mean that. It meant that he would want to be carried around until he was in high school.

Ryan and I argued about this kind of thing at least four times in Finley's six months. I would lose my sh*t every time, because I already emailed him 9,128 articles explaining that my constant contact with the baby was fulfilling a physiological need that would ultimately make him more independent.

Ryan would eventually get scared of me and stop arguing. And the next day, I would email him 832 more links. He'd pretend to read them, admit that he was wrong, and then a month or so later, we'd start over.

The very last thing I said in an argument was, Just wait until we get him a walker. Please shut up about this until then. I'm still trying to figure out why the eff we didn't order the walker sooner. Or whether I should have been more patient until he could walk on his own. Baby product industry conspiracy victim right here.

But it did solve my problem with my anxious husband. Just as I predicted, homeboy wants to be in his walker all the time. Until he gets tired, and then he wants to fall asleep in my arms or next to me.

Would he fall asleep if I left him on his own? I really don't know. And, I really, really don't care.

That's the awesome thing about ignoring all the horsesh*t anxiety. I will always help him to sleep, as long as he needs it. Pinterest told me that there are only like 940 Saturdays between your baby's birth and when s/he leaves for college. So, I will prioritize and enjoy every snuggle I can get.

5 Things You Will "Never Have Time For Again" with a Baby

When you're pregnant, once you get beyond the seven-too-many-doughnuts look, you will come across a subgroup of parents who have either developed psychic abilities, discovered time-travel, or are trying to feed you horsesh*t. They will tell you exactly how every part of your life from this point on is going to happen. From the epidural you're definitely going to need, to how much your teenagers are going to hate you.

Although I don't know how 15-year-old Finley will feel about me, I didn't get an epidural, so I'm reasonably sure it's the horsesh*t thing.

Really. The fact that no two lives are the same is completely lost on these propagandists. So, when they tell you that you're doomed to live a sleepless existence surrounded by filth alongside the spouse from whom you feel completely distant? Kick that f*cker in the shin.

Yes, your life will probably get busier once you have another human to care for. And what that means in practice VARIES. I don't know, you might end up sleepless and filthy and detached from your spouse. But I wouldn't go into parenthood with that expectation if I didn't have to. And no one has to.

Not only will your experience be different from others', it will be different every day, week, and month. I found it got easier fast. And honestly, I don't remember there ever being a point when we didn't have time for the following:

1. Cleaning the House.

Our baby is a happy guy, but he gets bored alone in his pack n play after anywhere between five and 20 minutes. I'll let him fuss a little, but I will not let him cry, so we no longer crush chores in one two-hour tag-team house cleaning event every Saturday morning. But, we never have dishes pile up, and we don't even have a dishwasher. I even get to clean the dogs' bowls every week. And I scrub our drying racks every week. We never have more than a basket worth of laundry waiting to be done. If you think I'm bragging...

The truth is that if we let Finley try to crawl around on the floor on a Wednesday, he'd be choking on dog hair, because he's still learning how to do it, and learning involves occasional face plants onto the carpet. We do vacuum and brush our dogs, but they are two of the hairiest beasts ever. So we figure once or twice a week is good enough, because otherwise it's like brushing your teeth while eating doughnuts, which kind of sounds delightful, but is mostly just silly.

But, the other truth is that I could probably vacuum after Fin's asleep instead of eating ice cream and scrolling through Pinterest. Parenthood. It's all about choices.

2. Personal Grooming.

I'll admit that I haven't had my hair cut in maybe a year, I put only mineral powder on my face on the train, and I wear yoga pants to my office job in downtown Boston more often than is acceptable, which would be technically never. But, that was equally true even before we conceived our boy. I do shower every day now, though, so, that's something.

BUT, I could easily get up a half hour earlier to try to look pretty. I could even go to sleep a half hour earlier at night to make up for it. But, my husband once made the mistake of telling me I look pretty without makeup. I haven't worn mascara since.

3. Marriage.

I don't know, we hang out every night after Fin goes to sleep. Usually we just stare at him and talk about how awesome he is, but that's serious quality bonding time if you ask me.

And we do every ordinary weekend errand as a family. Probably doesn't count as quality time, but I swear that stuff can be fun if you just decide to enjoy it. (This is why we never EVER go to Walmart, even though it would loosen up our budget.)

4. Exercise.

I'd be lying if I said I've used my jogging stroller even once. I don't know who I was kidding when I almost signed up for a Spartan Beast just over six months after my due date.

But, it is not that I don't have time for it. It would be embarrassingly easy for me to get out of bed an hour earlier than I do. I just don't want to. This is not a TOO BUSY issue, this is a TOO LAZY issue. A TOO COMFY issue. For now, I'll just pretending that walking a lot during the day counts.

5. Making Dinner.

I guess this is kind of a lie, because it's actually my very cool husband who makes dinner while I get Finley to sleep. And usually he doesn't even complain. My point is simply that it only takes one person to tend to the baby. If you have a spouse or any other help, that means one person is always free to tend to the household.

This might be a little unfair because my husband works for himself and I work for a non-profit, so we don't have the longest hours. But, we also don't have the biggest paychecks, if that makes you feel better.

And, speaking of big paychecks, I have a friend who has THREE housekeepers. (I really don't know how big her and her husband's paychecks are, but, if I had to guess...) Their baby is a couple months older than ours and started food a month before, and when she told me that there isn't time to do homemade baby food, I believed her. But, we don't even have one housekeeper and are finding homemade baby food to be no sweat.

Everyone's life is different.

3 Things I Won't Let My Child Have

I don't want to be one of those moms who micromanages her kids. Like, at all. But I have to be realistic about a few things. There are some things that I might have to negotiate Finley away from. Things that implicate his health, things that scare me, and things I just can't handle.

Yes. I said negotiate. I know that the loud parenting 'experts' tell you not to do this. But they're wrong. The better experts will tell you that negotiating with your kid will make him a better problem solver and a better self-advocate. Call me crazy but, SOUNDS GOOD.

Nonetheless. Here's hoping Fin never wants these things:

1. Uncrustables.

I didn't really think these existed anymore. But they do. It boggles my mind. But they do. I saw them in Target the other day. I mean, when I typed 'Uncrustables' on my phone, it autocorrected to 'on crud tables'. Exactly.

My husband makes bomb PB + J's. The other day, as I dripped farm fresh blueberry preserves on my baby's leg while destroying such a masterpiece, the thought occurred to me that some children are apparently fed Uncrustables. What the eff.

And don't even tell me your kid likes them. Your kid just doesn't know any better. Like, once, one of my dogs didn't know any better and she literally ate my sh*t out of the toilet as it was flushing. Disgusting, right? Exactly.

I just have to hope that the only humans keeping Uncrustables on the market are drunk, stoned college kids who won't even remember eating them.

On the off chance that Johnny's mom one day feeds my kid one laced with some addictive substance, and he actually does ask me for one, I am prepared to draw this line. I don't care what the FDA says. This sh*t just isn't right.

2. A miniature horse.

And this has nothing to do with fear of spoiling my son. If the million dollar idea we haven't thought of yet pans out, Fin can have a horse if he wants. BUT ONLY A REAL HORSE.

This? This is about how much these theoretically cute creatures really creep me out. I don't know why, exactly, but I'm hoping folks can relate. There's one at a farm we go to for weekly groceries, and whenever it's around, I won't even go say hi to the goats I love. My husband noticed the other week, and when I told him, he actually agreed that they creep him out, too. And, usually, when something creeps me out (e.g. those miniature corncobs in veggie fried rice), he insists I'm being irrational.

In high school, my best friend and I worked in the HR department at a big corporation that was headquartered in our hometown. We were really fast at everything they gave us to do, but I think they knew that neither of us would work there if the other one didn't, so they kept us both on payroll and simply told us: Don't let anyone in another department hear you say 'I have nothing left to do'. Well, one day we got tired of playing volleyball with a Hershey Kiss in the mail room and went to the "filed resumes" drawer. You know, the functional equivalent of a never-emptied trash can. (So, when you don't get the job, but the company is kind enough to "keep your resume on file", there's nothing kind about it. It's particularly unkind when they give immature high schoolers access to it.) This one guy, Roger (for sure his real name; I will never forget it) must have gone to a seminar or bought some guy's product that insisted that your cover letter "stand out!" Well, Roger not only wrote about how he raises miniature horses as a hobby, but also included a picture of himself and his most prized little creeper, Tiffany (no, I will never forget her name either). We cried laughing at this poor fool. For years.

I just can't bear to watch Finley grow up to be a Roger.

3. Rodents. Maybe cats.

Because I kind of hate them. But this isn't entirely about hate.

When I was little, I actually liked pet rodents. I guess I had a little bit of a Lenny syndrome going on, because I always wanted to hold animals. I just loved them so much.

The feeling was rarely mutual. My grandmother's cats would FLEE when I walked in the door every Sunday. Sure as sh*t, I'd chase them. Often, I cornered Si-Ling under the dining room table, but he got more ninja-like every week. (Yes, he was Siamese.) Atticus Finch was smarter (of course), and escaped to the basement, which I was afraid of. Then there was Baby, the fat diabetic one, who I vaguely remember thinking might bite me, which might just have been what I told myself rather than admitting that I really didn't even want to pick him up.

So, I really wanted something that I didn't have to chase around the house to pick up. I guess I didn't think about the fact that rodents who didn't want to be held would just bite me.

But, in any event, caged animals were not an option in our house. My mom said that seeing animals in cages made her sad. My mom was usually willing to let us attempt to persuade her; sometimes we were successful, sometimes we weren't. And this is how I know that negotiating with kids doesn't make them jack holes, and how I'm pretty sure it makes them smarter. At no more than five years old, I made the point that they have plenty of space in their cages, because their bodies are smaller, so the ratio works out. Probably didn't use the word ratio, but it was still pretty smart. But, no. It still made her sad to see them in cages. So nothing else I could say would change the fact that a gerbil would make my mom sad. And I never even thought about asking to go to the zoo. YUP. This sh*t works, folks.

Anyway, one day my mom started talking about getting a dog. At the time, my sister and I wanted a cat. (That makes me laugh. Scoff, actually.) There must have been some story in the news about a child being abducted from home in the middle of the night in a quiet town somewhere or something, because my mom insisted we needed canine protection in what was a pretty safe town, a solid 20+ minutes from any area that could be described as urban.

So, we picked out Panda, a border collie mutt, from the local shelter, who happened to be the world's least cuddly dog. She was a great dog but homegirl just would not snuggle. She wouldn't even come onto the furniture, no matter how much lunch meat and cheese I dangled in front of her nose. Drove me crazy, but from the moment I saw her, I never wanted a cat again.

Hopefully big dog love will be all Fin needs, because now I feel bad for caged animals too, and I'm still mad at cats.